Bioluminescent mammal

Rangifer tarandus lucifer

Bioluminescence is a phenomenon most commonly found among fish, insects and plankton. The Lightbringer reindeer is the only known example of bioluminescence among mammals, and it has thus become the source of many legends, most notably the one regarding Santa Claus' leading reindeer Rudolph.
Scientists believe that the Lightbringer reindeer use its shining red nose to locate a special kind of extra nutritious lichen, which is scentless and near invisible in the everlasting night of the arctic winter. Red light shows the lichen clearly, and this gives the Lightbringer reindeer a clear advantage over "ordinary" reindeer.
No one knows why this extraordinary animal is so rare, but it is believed that poaching is the main reason. Many scrupleless but wealthy persons have had Lightbringer reindeer captured to be kept in their private collections, which is not good as no kind of reindeer fare very well in captivity.
Medium: Micron pen (0,5 mm), watercolours and some glitter glue.

I did this out of sheer irritation. When you google "Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer" you get loads of hits, but it's not until the 5th page that something that actually looks like a reindeer turns up. Don't people know what a reindeer looks like? So of course I had to draw a reindeer with a red nose, even though it's in the middle of the summer. I'm weird.

Self crit: I need to stay away from glitter glue. The shadow on the ground should be a lot sharper, next time I need to pay more attention to it. And I need to use some other paper, this one didn't take to the paint the way I wanted it to, which is why the sky looks like crap. The photo isn't the best either, but it's as good as I could get it.